


Where Night Conquers Day

by Tabithian



Series: Fortunes Fade [3]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU, DCU (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-28
Updated: 2015-06-28
Packaged: 2018-04-06 13:17:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4223172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabithian/pseuds/Tabithian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The original plan had been neat, simple, or close enough Tim could think of it like that, but something always goes wrong, doesn't it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where Night Conquers Day

**Author's Note:**

> More WiP folder finds cleaned up to post here. This is based on the first few issues of the Red Robin comic with a few alterations to fit this AU and takes place some time after [The Devil's Teeth Stay Sharp](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4218198).
> 
> *hands*

Tim can hear Damian and Jason yelling at each other over the sound of the practice staves and Steph and Cass' cheering. He settles down to watch, and after a moment glances at the figure beside him. 

Dick's watching him, something unreadable on his face.

“What?”

“You're just leaving him here?”

As though Damian didn't move into the Manor months ago, feeling his way forward with Bruce, the others. As though Tim is responsible for him past bringing him to Gotham. (As though they both don't know that's exactly how Tim feels.)

It's not Dick asking Tim how he could abandon Damian, who'd been struggling to find his footing even before...this. It's Dick asking Tim how he could abandon him, _them_. The family, now that Bruce is dead. (He's not, he's _not_.)

He could stay, and be the ear Damian vents to, the shoulder he leans on when insecurities try to bring him low, even though Damian would never admit to such a thing. He could stay, but Bruce - 

Tim was never angry with Bruce, he never felt betrayed or that Bruce had failed him because it was Gotham and her costs. Prices paid in blood and pain and death, and somehow.

“I know I'm not right up here, Dick,” Tim says, tapping his head, mouth twitching at the look on Dick's face at that. “But he's alive.”

Dick closes his eyes, like he's striving for patience, understanding, and Tim.

Tim isn't looking for that right now, at least not like this.

*******

Tim's actually at the state line because he had things he needed to double-check before he can leave for his search when Jason calls him, asks if he'd reconsider having a sidekick because Dick is an _idiot_.

*******

"Bruce isn't dead," Tim says, aware of Jason watching him very carefully, perfectly still beside him.

"Of course he isn't," Jason says, and it's a credit to both Jason and Bruce's training that his voice almost stays level. 

Tim sighs, glances at Jason from the corner of his eye. "You need to work on your 'placating the crazy' voice there, Jason," he says. Reaches over to pop the glovebox, the tablet tucked away inside sliding loose.

"Look," Tim says, one eye on the rear-view as they cut through darkened neighborhoods, eerily quiet this time of night.

Jason gives him a long look before picking the tablet up, and browses through the various files. Stills, mostly, from various surveillance and security cameras. 

"Is that the fucking Manor?"

Tim's mouth curves upward. "You never thought to wonder how I knew what you guys were up to half the time?"

Jason scowls, hunching down in his seat. "Creepy bastard," he mutters, grudging with a note of admiration in there. “How'd you get past Bruce with this?"

Tim lets a full-fledged grin settle on his lips. "We have an unspoken agreement, I guess you could call it. I put cameras around the Manor, he set some up in my safe-houses. Win-win.” 

A little give and take on both their parts, what better way to not-quite admit to a certain level of trust in one another than that? 

He can feel Jason watching him, judging him, and yes, Tim knows that that's hardly normal.

“Jason.”

Jason gives a deeply aggravated sigh and goes back to the tablet, muttering to himself about the company he keeps, and Tim knows when he finds what Tim wanted him to when -

"What the hell?"

"The resemblance is uncanny, isn't it," Tim says, slowing to a stop as headlights come into view.

"What?"

Tim puts the car into park, settles back against his seat and looks over to Jason. "He's not dead," Tim says, and gets out of the car to face Dick, Batmobile blocking the road.

*******

And here's the thing, Tim thinks, ducking a strike from Dick, rolling to avoid another.

Back then, when he was struggling to fill the impossibly large shoes Dick left behind for him, he was never good enough. 

Not a natural athlete like Dick, never so quick with the witty one-liners and snappy dialogue.

He'd heard it said more than once that he might have been an equal to Dick one day, but.

Tim died.

He died before he could reach that potential, before he could show Bruce and Dick and the others what he was, _who_ he was, and now.

He's colder now, able to see what needs to be done and then do it, because sometimes that's all there is to it. No right or wrong, just what needs to be done, and Tim can see that now. (It's a slippery slope, he knows, but there's no one else, and better him than any of the others anyway.)

It's to Damian's advantage when they spar, because Damian never knew the person Tim used to be, the one Bruce trained. He knows Tim _now_ , the one who died and came back crazier than ever, who was taken in by Ra's al Ghul and his assassins.

"I need to do this," Tim says, knife at Dick's throat.

It's beautifully made, reforged from a broken blade but no less deadly for it. (A parting gift from Ra's meant to be a reminder of who Tim is now, as though Tim could ever forget.)

Leans in and lowers his voice. " _Jason_ needs to do this."

Dick's eyes go to the car, Jason leaning forward in his seat, one hand on the door release, tense and ready to intervene.

Trusting Tim, but that trust only goes so far, and Tim is pushing the limits like this.

"Tim - "

Dick sounds wrecked, guilt and stress and helplessness, and Tim.

It would be so easy right now to give in, back down and listen to Dick. Ignore the little voice in the back of his mind telling him Bruce is still alive, not dead, not yet, but.

This is the voice that's been with him his entire life, the one that led him to discover Bruce and Dick's secret identities. The one that told him Batman needed a Robin, that told him to lie Bruce. (That got him killed.) 

"I can't just let you take him," Dick says, eyes drifting back to Tim. "I can't let either of you go like this.”

Because as much as they've manage to fix things between them, Dick can never _forget_ , and it eats at him. Makes him second-guess himself when it comes to Tim.

"He can't stay here, Dick," Tim says. "Not now."

“You made a mistake,” Tim says, and it's an effort to make his voice go cold, flat, with the look in Dick's eyes. “He wasn't ready to step down, but you took that choice from him. If I leave him here now, things will only get worse."

Tim understands Dick's decision, but he doesn't have to like it. 

Damian needs Robin, Tim knows it. Dick knows it, must have seen it for a while now. Even Jason knows it, much as he doesn't give a damn about that at the moment.

"Damian needs you now," Tim says, and doesn't say Dick needs him almost as much.

Jason needs Bruce, maybe even more than Tim does.

"Jason needs this."

"And Jason needs you?"

There's bitterness there, so unlike Dick, and accusation.

For Tim dying - lying to them to bring it about, or the way he's living his life now, Tim isn't sure.

"No," Tim says, and slowly, carefully pulls back, slipping the knife back in its sheath at his hip. "He needs Bruce."

He can see it in the set of Dick's jaw, biting back things he knows he shouldn't say - 

"And Gotham needs you," Tim says.

Not a broken Bat, or a Robin with his wings cut.

There's no place for either of them now, but Dick, Damian - 

"We'll be back," Tim says. 

(It's a promise.)


End file.
